Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Nevada lawmakers mark anniversary at Pentagon ceremony

WASHINGTON -- One year ago, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., huddled with his staffers in their Capitol Hill office and prayed.

The Pentagon had just been attacked and the senator led prayers for Marc Thiessen, the husband of his legislative director Pam Thiessen, who is a speechwriter at the Pentagon for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. They would later learn that he was unhurt.

But just a few minutes after the prayers, Ensign and his staff fled the Russell Senate Office Building as Capitol Hill offices were evacuated amid warnings the Capitol might be a target.

Congress, galvanized by the events of Sept. 11, would not be the same.

Today Ensign marked the one-year anniversary in the Pennsylvania field where United Flight 93 crashed. Pennsylvania Sens. Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter invited some of their fellow lawmakers to join them for remembrances there.

"The world is a more dangerous place," Ensign said in an interview Tuesday. "We now know that we are more vulnerable."

The lasting legacy of Sept. 11, 2001 may be that it marked a moment when the United States began to rethink its role on the world stage, Ensign said.

"I'm hoping that it wakes us up to the fact that we have to be engaged in the world," Ensign said. "We cannot afford to look just within our borders."

Nevada's three other members of Congress today were among those gathered with lawmakers, construction and rescue workers, military officials and President Bush for a moving ceremony at the rebuilt $500 million west side of the Pentagon.

When the attacks occurred, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., had just met with Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and other Democrats to talk business issues. By the time she returned to her office, all eyes were glued to the television.

Berkley sent the staff home, and upon being evacuated from the office, went to her townhouse near the Capitol to huddle with top aides -- and to call her father.

Berkley sat on her living room couch "mesmerized" by the television images like so many other Americans, she said.

"Sitting there I realized I was in a position to protect and to serve," Berkley said. "I became very ware of the responsibility I had."

Berkley said the televised images of the collapsing World Trade Center towers are her most vivid memories from that day.

"Just the mixture of emotions, anger, despair and the resolve that this cannot go unanswered, it cannot go unpunished," Berkley said, recalling a year ago.

One year ago, Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., had cut short a 9 a.m. meeting with Commerce Secretary Don Evans, and watched television coverage of the attacks, awe-struck.

Gibbons, as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, has since been part of the movement in Congress to refocus the U.S. intelligence network on chasing terrorists. Gibbons also is now leading the effort in the House to create a Homeland Security Department, which Gibbons called for shortly after the attacks.

Majority Whip Harry Reid, D-Nev., as a Senate leader, was whisked away by helicopter to an undisclosed location after the attacks. Later that night he joined members of Congress defiantly singing, "God Bless America" on the Capitol steps.

Reid said his most vivid memory of Sept. 11 was smoke billowing from the Pentagon.

"That was a little eerie," he said. Reid remembers that in the chaotic first few hours after the attack Capitol officials took congressional leaders to a safe location because they had no idea when, where or if another attack was imminent, he said.

Two al Qaida members in June reportedly told the Al-Jazeera network that the Capitol was the intended target of Flight 93, and Reid said he counts himself lucky to be alive.

Reid, who has continued to needle Bush on domestic issues, has joined with the vast majority of Congress who support the president in the war on terrorism, calling Saddam Hussein a "rat" and a "menace."

During the service today, Reid thought: "I'm glad to be watching," he said.

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